I don’t think I’m gangsta enough to survive in Polk County, Florida. This suburb may sound vaguely familiar to some of you. This is where Victoria “Tori” Lindsey got beat down a few weeks ago. You might remember, six girls took turns hitting her while two guys stood at the door as lookouts. Oh and did I mention that they taped it and wanted to post this ass-beating on youtube?

Back in my day (be quiet, I know my day ended like yesterday), it would go down like this. A girl would talk shit about another girl or group of girl one of three ways: in a note, on the phone, or on aim. This of course always got back to the other girl, and the result would either be girl B talking about girl A, girl B confronting girl A and in very rare cases, girl B physically fighting girl A. What would not happen is a gang of girls attacking one other girl… and then taping it … and the trying to put that trash on the internet for everyone to watch.

Allow me to introduce myself, I am “the light skin girl wonder” (or LSGW, for short).

I was born in LA, raised in CT, drop kicked out the closet in MA, and currently reside in NYC. My mom is Jamaican and Cuban (so Black) and my dad’s birth certificate tells me he’s “Negro” so it’s safe to say that I’m Black except I don’t really look Black. Apparently I look Dominican, which I think is also Black, and people tend to talk to me in Spanish… and then roll their eyes when I tell them I’m not Latina, I’m just regular Black – but light (especially in the winter). This ambiguity leads to many interesting inner-dialogues about my ethnic identity and who I am. For the most part, I identify with my Jamaican roots more than anything because I was raised by my grandmother.

And yes, all the rumors you’ve heard about Jamaicans being crazy homophobic are true. Although I haven’t come out to my grandmother, I’m sure she knows (thanks to a not so subtle keychain my first girlfriend gave me). But it’s ok, she prays for me every day. When I came out to my mother, she handled it the best she could. Four years later, she’s ok with it. At this point, she just wants me to settle down with someone and give her grandchildren. *shudders* Dad knows and never talks about it… ever.

So new friends, what else should you know about me? I always say what’s on my mind, to a fault. I recently started writing again after a two year hiatus. In typical LSGW fashion, I’ve got lots to say and now I have a new space to say them. I want to inspire, educate, share, grow, and learn from all of you. Hopefully the effort will be reciprocated.

How’d I get here?

Funny question. So I was talking with a group of self-proclaimed bougie Black folk and we were talking about if you can pray away the gay and people were feeling really comfortable because they assumed everyone was straight in the group. So I’m chillin’ in the cut listening to people say some crazy off the wall stuff and then I dropped the B-bomb – bisexual. (We were in the middle of a heated discussion about whether bi exists or not). Crickets. Yeah. Then the tones changed, people wanted to be inquisitive. I get private asides that they don’t really feel that way and they’re sure I’m not going to go to hell. Gee thanks.

I recently finished James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. Spoiler alert: After witnessing a lynching, he decided to start passing as a White man and lived the rest of his life like that. He was so embarrassed about belonging to a race with so few rights and who could be dealt with so mercilessly that he essentially quit the race to live the easy life.

It’s very easy for me to pass as straight because I “look straight”. I date femmes, so my girlfriends look like they are just girl friends. I also date men more frequently than I date women, so people often question why I still identify as bi when it probably would be easier to keep my mouth shut and just act like an ally. The thought has crossed my mind, but then I wouldn’t be true to myself. Even if I never dated another woman again, I wouldn’t pretend to be straight and ignore my past. I would never consider a life on the downlow. And I do all this recognizing the privilege I get from living in some of the most liberal cities and in very supporting environments.

When asked what I want to write about, my response was something along the lines of “race, pop culture, sexuality (and the homophobia goes with that), island people, South Africa, women's colleges, schoolin’ fools on who I am, challenging Catholics and Baptists about whether or not I'm going to hell, the bi-life, answering dumb questions like ‘how do you pick up girls?’ with witty answers like, ‘the same way I pick up boys’, being dropped kicked out the closet, confusion over which gender to spend the rest of my life with, keeping it real even when it really goes wrong, awkwardly reentering the dating scene, passing, punching holes in the box, etc. etc.”

To steal a line from Steve Biko, “I write what I like.”
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